The Martial Unity

"Remind me why we spent an entire day in advance for this meeting?" Kane sighed, crouching.

"To make sure that they aren't setting up a trap," Rui replied.

The two of them were waiting inside a tunnel, near the entrance to it from outside the Shionel Dungeon. They had simply stepped a few meters into the dungeon after entering it. They had even blocked off the tunnel to ensure that nobody would enter it and run into them.

Kane was bored, while Rui simply kept watch over a certain office branch of the Adventurer Guild near the Shionel Dungeon.

As a caveat for the potential security holes that existed, it was stipulated into law that the withdrawal of large sums of money required the verification and monitoring of individuals with a certain level of authority or above.

That meant that Rui could not walk into the Shionel Merchant Guild, and simply extract all the money that he wanted and leave. That was why he hadn't already withdrawn all of his revenue and run away from the Shionel Confederation.

He had set up a meeting with Guildmaster Bradt, the only person who he was willing to engage with from the Merchant Guild over the matter.

He and Kane had immediately perched themselves outside the meeting spot to make sure that Guildmaster Bradt didn't set anything up as a trap before the meeting.

Not that Rui believed that Guildmaster Bradt would try something of the sort. Rui had already shown that when he was near the Shionel Dungeon he was always holding a powerful bomb in his hands that could do a lot of damage.

Furthermore, they both had enough to gain from finally completing their long-drawn agreement and cooperation and would like to see a clean break where they had nothing to do with each other now.

"Alright, it's time," Rui nodded as he pushed aside the boulder, opening up the path to outside the Shionel Dungeon. "I'll meet you after."

"Gotcha, bye," Kane waved him away.

Rui walked over to the branch, crossing the large gate that separated the Shionel Dungeon from the inner ring of the Adventurer Ring town, quickly heading over to the Adventurer Guild branch where he had insisted to hold the meeting.

The two Martial Squires guards that stood outside simply nodded wordlessly at him when he arrived there, leading him inside.

The branch was emptied out, for the meeting specifically, Rui supposed.

What surprised him was that this time, Guildmaster Bradt had chosen to arrive physically, rather than through the projection like last time.

However, he was guarded to the tooth with grade-ten Martial Squires. Rui sensed that they were watching his every move like a hawk, they would not allow him to harm so many grade-ten Martial Squires standing right around him while there was some distance between him and the guildmaster.

"Finally," Guildmaster Bradt greeted him with a nod. "We meet in person."

Rui had to admit that Guildmaster Bradt possessed a greater presence in real life than he did through a projection. The man somehow drew more attention from Rui than his impressive Martial Squire guards did. That was what impressed Rui, the man exerted a lot of presence on Rui despite not being a Martial Artists or a physical threat to Rui.

It seemed that Rui's instincts could sense the sheer amount of indirect pressure that the man possessed. He possessed more than enough power to get Rui killed.

Especially considering that he was the guildmaster for the next four years of the Shionel Confederation.

"Indeed, congratulations on being elected guildmaster, Guildmaster Bradt," Rui offered a perfunctory greeting.

Guildmaster Bradt nodded. "I'd like to get things over with quickly."

"Of course," Rui nodded. "I'd like to confirm the presence of the statement."

Guildmaster Bradt waved his hand and one of his subordinates placed a document on the table, pushing it to Rui.

Rui opened the sheer, reading an official-looking paper with the seal of the Shionel Merchant Guild, and Guildmaster Bradt's own signature at the very bottom.

The statement declared that any bearer of the sheet of paper was entitled to a net sum of money that Rui was withdrawing from the account. Thus, Rui could essentially treat it as a cheque. Rui intended to pass it through the Martial Union before it was deposited into his own bank account. This way he could protect his own identity.

Rui nodded, turning back to Guildmaster Bradt.

The man immediately replied. "Now, complete your end of the bargain fully, after all this time.

Rui nodded, before pulling out three books and dropping them on the table. Guildmaster Bradt's eyes lit up as he opened each book, unfolding it one after the other. "Ah… The final and completed map of the Shionel Dungeon."

Rui had spent a day or two drawing out the full map of the Shionel Dungeon, it grew to be more of a pain every time he did it since he needed to draw whole new maps with updated pathways.

With this, their exchange and contract were over. Guildmaster Bradt had finally gotten what he wanted this entire time; the complete map to the entirety of the Shionel Dungeon. With this, he would be able to go ahead and convert the Shionel Dungeon into his exclusive distribution kingdom once he commenced his plans of commercializing and commodifying the Shionel Dungeon. The Bradt Distribution Service would soon enter its golden era once he successfully implemented this, in the same manner, that Chairman Deacon had entered his golden era during the exploration of the Shionel Dungeon.

"This…?" Guildmaster Bradt frowned as he reached the bottom of the Shionel Dungeon on the map.

"Ah, that's the final floor of the Shionel Dungeon," Rui nodded. "I cleared it but didn't care to mine all the esoteric ore deposits. I would suggest you get to it before Chairman Deacon does."

Rui would rather see Guildmaster Bradt get it than Chairman Deacon.

"I appreciate the tip," Guildmaster Bradt nodded. "Allow me to repay the favor."

"Hm?"

"You're not as well-hidden as you'd like, Rui Quarrier."