Eren had started hiring temporary staff after filling up the key positions in the guild.
He didn't want the guild to have a large number of members. He wanted his guild to run on the same principle House Lancelot ran its guild on– a guild of elites.
A few guild members he could count on to get the job done. This was not a tactic most start-up guilds would adopt because it hindered their growth at the start. But Eren didn't care about the hurdles the guild would have to face in the beginning. He was more focused on strengthening the guild's foundation by hiring elites or cultivating them from the scratch.
Thus, getting a position in an up-and-coming guild with a meteoric rise like White Raven was not an offer most rankers would pass on. However, Marie shook her head in disapproval at Arizihana and let her know she wasn't onboard.
Arizihana sighed after seeing Marie's body language. She looked at Eren while pursing her lips before speaking up.
"I… I am sorry, Adept Eren. But we already have our plans. So I'm afraid we'd have to pass on your offer."
Arizihana spoke with a voice coated in a bit of helplessness. She then lifted the lid off of the glass of beverage that was placed on her side of the table and brought it closer to her mouth.
Marie was feeling a bit stressed because of Eren's gaze on her. For some reason, she thought that she had met this man before. As if this was not the first time he was looking at her.
Eren wasn't surprised when he heard Ari's refusal. He had run some background information on Arizihana after finding out the two were in his city. He found out that she had given up her position and influence inside the city of Silvermoon.
There was no official information available on an assumed identity called Mica. but seeing her in person, Eren immediately recognized that she was Marie, Marla's sister.
Eren hadn't met Marie on an official level. But he had seen her when Marie and Arizihana were leading the Beast Bloods into hunting his altered identity Ron Damien. He had come face to face with Arizihana and Marie at that time before fleeing from the scene.
Eren had come back to kill two Adept rankers who were fighting with each other because of him at that time. But he didn't interact with any other ranker after making his kills. He had killed those two Adepts and disappeared into the night like a ghost.
However, Eren had heard about Marie from his teacher Levine and her biological sister Marla. After connecting the dots and seeing her in person, Eren was sure the one who was sitting in front of him was in fact Marie-- a cultist from the Beast Bloods who was used to running her own operations.
These two ladies were unhinged. But one of them had a shady background. Because of that, they couldn't join the White Raven guild as its members.
Or at least that's what they had thought.
"Look, I know you both want to earn a sizable chunk of money from this city before going on a hunt to explore new opportunities. But why not serve me if earning money is all you want?
I'll pay you a decent wage each month. And in exchange, you'd just have to do what I say. Something that won't be too complicated.
Just so that we are clear, let me tell you that I don't care what you were doing in the past. As long as you do good work here, you'd get paid and receive all the other perks that come with it."
Ari looked at Eren with a stoic expression when Eren spoke. She had come to realize that Eren might know about Marie by the way he had chosen to speak those words. She kept her silence and looked at Marie, telling her to take charge of the conversation.
Marie looked at Mica with closed eyes as she spoke.
"Adept Eren, sorry to be blunt but we won't be joining any guild. And that'd be the end of it."
Mica, aka Marie, spoke with an unflinching tone. She knew that Beast Bloods would have liked it if she made contact with Eren and chose to become a part of his guild. That way, Beast Bloods would have an agent in this city. Someone with better access to resources and information.
However, she was almost able to combine human potioning recipes with elven elemental attainment synthesis. She didn't want her organization's extra attention on her at this point. She was also not interested in working with Beast Bloods anymore now that she had obtained everything she wanted from them.
Marie was earning a decent amount of money that she could then use to support her experiments. To make the volatile potions stable and safe to consume, she just needed the missing ingredient. A breakthrough in her experiments would revolutionize the way humans made their potions.
Joining the White Raven guild would complicate things for her on multiple fronts. Eren wasn't aware of Marie's potioning needs. But he didn't care about any of the stuff the elf or the halfling were trying to say to him anyway.
"Hm. It's my fault. I didn't make this clear from the beginning. So it seems you have some ambiguity.
Either you'd work for me and get paid. Or you'd work for me for free. All you have to do now is to choose what you want to do."
Eren said while releasing a dense white cloud of smoke from his mouth and nostrils. His subtle smile had turned into a smirk, making the two ladies feel that they were inside some kind of a trap.
"What are you talking about?"
Marie asked Eren in a grim voice. The latter chuckled before speaking up.
"A traitor to the city of Silvermoon and a known cultist from Beast Bloods. Ladies, you'd want to work for my guild one way or the other. Or else…"
