Soon enough, finding their way inside Temple Guard City alongside the group of pilgrims, it didn’t take long before the group of five had to separate and set out in search of the dream gate. Knowing that they couldn’t waste more time after having essentially spent the past hour waiting in line alongside the group of pilgrims instead of focusing on the task that the cardinal had assigned to them.
Altogether, it didn’t take them long to find the branch belonging to the Adventurers Guild, as it was prominently located at the very core of the city. Serving as reminder that the city wasn’t under the control of any kingdom or empire, but instead under the direct control of the Adventures Guild.
"Huh? A group of church members?"
"What are those bastards doing here?!"
"Hmph, they are properly here to exact revenge on half of that arrogant brat earlier!"
But, as the group of five stepped inside the guild branch, they were almost immediately met with hostility from the adventurers inside, causing a great deal of confusion to the group of five who had never expected this kind of hostile reception given the relatively positive relationship between the Adventurers Guild and the Holy Light Church.
Even worse, as they attempted just to ignore this crowd of hostile adventurers as a group who might have had some kind of bad experience with some troublemaker from the church and seek out the dream gate so they could peacefully continue the task that had been assigned to them by the cardinal without getting involved in anything troublesome, they found themselves faced with trouble as the staff member decided to directly ignore them. Making it difficult to get in contact with a more senior member who would know about the dream gate and had the ability to help them enter the dreamscape.
After all, a dream gate was an incredible precious artifact and wasn’t placed somewhere public for everyone to use. Not just because of how dangerous it was, but also because it wasn’t exactly without cost to use.
"What do we do now? It seems some junior caused some kind of situation not long ago and soured the relationship between the church and the guild at this place." Overhearing some of the complaints towards them from the surrounding adventurers, it didn’t take long for one of the five to grasp the reason behind the current cold shoulder they were receiving.
"Hmph! So what? What does a little junior causing trouble have to do with us? If the branch leader doesn’t appear, we can simply be a bit more forceful and make them appear!" Sneering disdainfully as he said this, one of the five directly flexed his muscle and prepared to cause a commotion to draw out the senior of the Adventurer Guild in charge of the branch out-
"No–I have a feeling that the situation will only become worse if we try to do something like that. Don’t forget, this is still a main branch under the guild and there is no lack of S Rank Adventurers. Especially with a dream gate present. Just this place alone has more than four people at the S Rank."
But before he could carry out his plan of causing a bit of chaos, the senior sister figure among the group of five stepped forward and stopped him, causing a clear frown to form on his face. "What do you suggest then? We can’t delay the request from the cardinal for too long and wait around for the situation to calm down, we need to get to the dreamscape as fast as possible, or the divine beast might have already completed its evolution and left by the time we step into the dreamscape!"
"I know that, let me try and deal with the situation first." Knowing that they indeed didn’t have long to complete the mission assigned by the cardinal before it potentially became impossible to complete, the senior sister acknowledged his words before stepping forward to try and defuse the situation and come up with a potential solution that didn’t involve them clashing with the adventurers from the Adventurers Guild.
After all, though all of them wanted to avoid any kind of confrontation with the Adventurers Guild, if the situation called for it, they weren’t afraid of clashing with them if it meant that it was the only way for them to complete the mission that had been assigned to them by the cardinal.
Luckily, as the senior sister stepped forward and managed to start a conversation with some of the adventurers present, it didn’t take long for them to learn about what had happened.
Problem was, the information wasn’t exactly helpful to their current situation, as they learnt some kind of important member of the church carrying an unknown rank had dragged his son through the city in what could only be described as a humiliation tour created to destroy the reputation of the church. Culminating in this pair of troublemakers trying to take advantage of younger female adventurer who unfortunately for the pair had been out with her parents who both happened to be S Rank Adventurers.
Given the circumstances, it was not difficult to imagine what had happened next as the pair had been beaten up before hastily retreating while yelling about them returning to take revenge in the future with a group of powerful cardinals.
From just the little information, it was clear to the group that whoever this troublemaker was, shouldn’t be a member of the Holy Light Church. After all, a cardinal was not someone easily mobilized and those within the church capable of mobilizing a group of cardinals at once could be counted on a single hand and wouldn’t have lost to two S Rank Adventurers.
Explaining this to the adventurers who were generally unaware of the power structure that existed within the church, the senior sister found it easy to make them understand by simply stating that a cardinal was someone who exceeded the S Rank in terms of strength and at the same time also inform them that she and the other four had come to carry out a mission on behalf of a cardinal.
No matter how angered the group of adventurers had been, after hearing that the five with strength clearly comparable to the S Rank came to carry out the order of a single cardinal, it didn’t take them long to realize that the person behind everything wasn’t even a member of the Holy Light Church like the other party had originally stated.
Normally, they might not have been so easily fooled, but Temple Guard City was a place that saw frequent visits from powerful members of the church, and it wasn’t that odd to them that there might be a troublemaker appearing among those groups of pilgrims coming to pay their respect to the dead at the memorial site.
In fact, several troublemakers had appeared in the past, it was just that this one happened to be the worst that these adventurers had ever encountered. Reaching the point where the other pilgrims of the church ended up unknowingly suffering from the harm caused by father son pair.
"That troublemaker appeared again! And this time around, the two brought a group of people who appear to be from the Red Dawn Legion!"
"""..."""
Hearing the sudden exclamation from the entrance as it looked like the situation was finally about to calm down and their path to the dream gate secured, the five felt the eyes of every person inside the branch turning towards them, a clear look of doubt in their eyes.
"First impersonating as one of us and now even bringing out the Red Dawn Legion!? I really want to see who is bold enough to do something like this!" Not even waiting for response from the other four, the more aggressive man who had been the first to suggest they cause trouble earlier spun around and directly grabbed the younger man who had stumbled inside the branch and called out a second earlier. "You, show me the way to those two troublemakers and the so-called Red Dawn Legion." Directly commanding the young man who began nodding his head like a small chick when faced with the intimidating senior that had suddenly grabbed hold of him.
Not even having the time to register that the person in question was also someone from the Holy Light Church, as he obediently began leading this scary senior towards the troublemaker in question.
"Haaa... Looks like we will be spending a bit longer here than originally anticipated..."
"Hehe, how unfortunate, though I am curious about this group of pretenders and what made them brave enough to pose as one of us. Even daring to impersonate those battle maniacs from the Red Dawn Legion, they truly have a death wish..."
"Indeed... Now let’s go enjoy the show, we can treat it as a break before having to enter the dreamscape..."
Only lingering around for a short time, the remaining four soon enough followed the aggressive member of their group out of the building. After which the adventurers inside realized that something interesting was going to take place as they similarly rushed out to see what was going to happen.