The commotion in the red light district gathered the attention of countless people. It even piqued the attention of those influential people.
A lot of people escaped from the district and some of the empire's guards took them. They found out that these people were adventurers and the Bentley Family kidnapped them.
The empire's guards had no choice but to force themselves inside the red light district when they heard about it.
Also, the Adventurers Guild was furious about this incident. A noble family was kidnapping a bunch of their people and tortured them to the point that they just wanted to die. So the guild masters of the four branches of Adventurers Guild in Eternal Empire mobilize the adventurers in this country and issued a request to watch the people of the Bentley Family.
They weren't going to attack first as the guild masters were going to talk to the head of the Bentley Family. Also, they needed to talk to the Security Bureau of this country.
Lumilia and Lynn went to the palace as Princess Alea called them. The two of them received the request from the Adventurers Guild and they felt that Bryan's disappearance was related to this case.
When they arrived in the royal palace, Alea's butler greeted them.
"Princess Alea is waiting for you..."
The butler said as he bowed his head to the two and lead them towards the room where Alea is.
Lumilia glanced at the butler. She knew that this butler was a liquefied realm expert. He was not a simple butler at all considering the level of his strength.
They arrived in front of the room and the butler opened the door. Lumilia and Lynn entered the room to see Alea sitting on a chair with a serious expression.
Alea smiled when she saw the two. "Good to see you two." She said as she leaned her back on her chair.
Lumilia and Lynn thanked her and they sat down on a seat in front of Alea. They didn't say anything and just waited for the princess to start the conversation.
After a while, Alea sighed and she slowly opened her mouth.
"You are both registered adventurers so I'm sure that you've heard about the things that happened in the red light district one hour ago." She said.
"Yes... The guild issued a quest to guard the Bentley Family territory and watch their movements." Lumilia paused as she looked at the door before she continued, "I think that it will not be long before the guild ordered the adventurers to subdue the Bentley Family. The guild masters are really furious this time as more than a hundred adventurers were tortured in the underground of the red light district."
Yeah, hundreds of adventurers who were thought dead were still alive. The guild could accept it if they simply died while trying to explore dungeons or completing difficult quests but they were captured and tortured. They became a battery of the whole red light district. Their energy was the ones that keeping that district alive. That's why the guild couldn't accept it.
If the branch guild masters could solve this problem then they would contact the main guild in the Nivari Kingdom, the country of adventurers.
"The captives aren't only adventurers. Some of them are missing people of this country and we never thought that the Bentley Family is the one behind those kidnappings." Alea sighed as she closed her eyes. A moment after she opened her eyes and looked at Lumilia in the eyes, "and I think that this is connected to Bryan's disappearance. No, this is connected to his crime and disappearance. If we investigated this matter we will know the truth."
"The moment I heard about the in the red light district, I already realized that the Bentley Family is the one manipulating the past incidents behind the scene. The girl called Mina disappeared that night when the incident in the detention center occurred. According to the information, that girl is a prostitute and she had a huge debt.
"Just by looking at it, you can already see the connection. The red light district is a property of the Bentley Family. So I did some investigation and asked some of the people from Lanny corp to handle this matter.
"Do you know what I've found when I went to the Lanny corp?"
Lumilia looked at Princess Alea.
"What?" Princess Alea narrowed her eyes.
"Bryan wanted to take down the Bentley Family because of that girl called Mina. They are planning to take down that huge family but the Bentley Family got them first so Bryan became a criminal for the crime that he didn't do. I'm not sure about this at first but the incident one hour ago proved that my guess is right." Lumilia exhaled. "The Bentley Family tried to help you investigate the incident in the detention center but their goal is different from you. They gave the wrong information so that we believe that Bryan is really the culprit."
"Yeah, I should have let my trusted subordinates investigate this matter. I shouldn't have depended on them." Alea sighed and added, "But we couldn't find Bryan among the people the escaped from the red light district. According to them, a man with red hair is the one who freed them and fought the experts of the Bentley Family."
"I think that we need to move now..." Lumilia said.
...
"I need to find Brother Bryan. If it's needed I will even flip out the entire Bentley Family just to find Brother Bryan."
Eunice crossed her arms in front of her chest. Now that the pieces were coming together, she was sure that the Bentley Family was the one behind Bryan's disappearance.
She came from one of the ten great families so the forces that she could mobilize were huge even though she was just a little girl. She had the authority after all she was the daughter of the head of the Giniver Family, a noble family of high elves.
"Eunice..."
Eunice glanced at the woman in front of her and snorted. This woman was her older sister, Amiel Le Giniver.
"Don't try to stop me, sister. I will find Brother Bryan."
Amiel smiled wryly and said, "You don't need to use our people. I'm sure that Princess Alea will find Bryan."
"No, that's a big no. I won't wait here and Brother Bryan would think that I didn't care about him." Eunice walked out of the room leaving those words.
...
The things regarding the Bentley Family were turning high. The guild masters were getting impatient as no matter how much they called the head of the family, he won't come out and greet them.
Maybe, the head of the family wasn't in this place.
Soon, the guild masters received a report from their subordinates. The contents of the report were about the things related to the ritual that they've rummaged in the red light district.
"Fuck!!! So Algard isn't here?"
One of the four guild masters cursed in a loud voice.
Algard was the name of the head of the Bentley Family.
"But with this... We have a reason to attack the Bentley Family." Another guild master said while glancing at the other three.
"Yeah, tell the adventurers on standby to attack the Bentley Family. We will thoroughly destroy this noble family as they dared to kidnapped our adventurers under our noses. Also, I will report this to the main guild so that they could talk to the higher-ups of this country about our decision."
A large operation has started...
The adventurers attacked the Bentley Family even without receiving the permission of the Security Bureau. But then, it wasn't easy for them as the guild master has to make a move.
Most of the experts of the Adventurers Guild were only C-rank so they were at a disadvantage in terms of individual strength. They only had a few dozen of B-rank in the whole country and their A-rank could be counted in one hand.
They didn't even have a single S-rank expert. Most of the S-rank experts of the guild weren't in the Eternal Empire, they were doing a high difficult quest to requires several months to complete. Also, a month ago the main guild called most of the S-rank and above adventurers. Since then, the S-rank and above adventurers could be hardly seen in any country.
But they had an overwhelming advantage in numbers as their number was several times larger than the forces of the Bentley Family. Also, most of the elites of the Bentley Family weren't in their territory. They were outside of the country preparing the ritual to purify their bloodline.
While everyone was busy in the Eternal Empire, Bryan already left the country and was heading towards the place of the ritual.
He couldn't wait for other people to come here as he didn't know how many would die if the ritual started.
"Just wait for me."
Bryan's face was serious and it was rarely seen by other people. Anger filled his eyes as he tightly clenched his fist.
