Becoming a Monster

Chapter 658: Chapter 657: Meaning Well Changes Nothing

Thalric had no evidence to prove his assumption. His gut was all he had to go off of, but the instincts he had honed through countless brushes with death were rarely wrong.

Unfortunately, being right wouldn’t help him much if he couldn’t prove it.

For now, there was nothing Thalric could do.

His best chance would be finding an opportunity to speak with Bailey alone. If that never came, then he could only hope Malachi became preoccupied enough once the fighting started for Soren to get her away from the battlefield.

Until then, Thalric would have to be careful.

His expression remained composed as he met Malachi’s smile with a firm look before turning his attention back toward Bailey.

“I was merely concerned with why she was here. This isn’t a place she should be.” Thalric paused before looking toward Malachi again. “But since you feel that it’s appropriate for her to be here, then let’s focus on what should be done.”

Malachi’s smile didn’t change, although he couldn’t deny that Thalric had managed to bypass the trap rather beautifully.

He still had plenty to pick apart if he wanted to keep going. A few carefully chosen words could bring the attention back toward Thalric, and if Malachi pushed hard enough, he didn’t doubt he could damage the Guild Master’s image even further.

But there was a time and place for everything.

Right now, they still had a demon to defeat.

Thalric’s strength was valuable, and so were the men who followed him. More importantly, Malachi had no intention of damaging the expedition’s morale before they even entered the forest. There would be plenty of opportunities to deal with Thalric afterward, assuming the Guild Master survived long enough for it to matter.

There was also Bailey to consider.

Malachi could continue pushing until whatever trust remained between her and Thalric was destroyed, but there was little reason to take things that far. Thalric wasn’t only the Guild Master of Ashenveil. He had become a mentor to Bailey and the friends she had arrived in this world with, and no matter how conflicted she might currently feel, destroying that relationship too quickly could do more harm than good.

A vulnerable person still had their uses.

A broken one could only be discarded.

Malachi knew the difference.

“Of course.” His smile remained as he turned his attention toward the others. “Then perhaps we should return to the reason she’s here in the first place.”

For once, Thalric found himself agreeing with him.

Unfortunately, Malachi wasn’t finished.

“After all, our young friend has already provided us with information that could prove quite important to everyone here.”

Several gazes immediately returned to Bailey, although Malachi allowed their attention to remain on her for only a moment.

“Information that, apparently, our Guild Master has known for quite some time.”

This time, the reaction around them was considerably different.

Thalric could already see the questions forming before anyone had the chance to voice them. Whatever interest Bailey had drawn only moments ago was quickly shifting toward him, and with it came the exact kind of discussion they didn’t have time for.

Why had Thalric kept information from them?

What else did he know?

And perhaps most importantly to the people preparing to enter the forest, what had Thalric known that could have affected their decision to come here?

Malachi watched the change happen with the same pleasant expression before raising a hand.

“Let’s not judge the Guild Master so quickly. Surely he had a good reason to hold back such important information from us all, even at the risk of us losing our lives.” His smile remained perfectly pleasant. “The Guild Master, who has always placed the safety of this city above everything else, would never do something so reckless… so unforgivable… for his own personal interests.”

Thalric had thought himself prepared for whatever Malachi intended to throw at him.

Now he realized how badly he had miscalculated.

For years, he had hoped the younger generation would eventually grow strong enough to replace the old. Ashenveil couldn’t continue depending on the same people forever. And when Bailey and the others arrived, Thalric had seen more potential in them than he had in nearly every other adventurer in their city. Some of their potential was even higher than his own.

He had taken them under his wing because of that.

He wanted them to survive long enough to become people the city could depend on after people like him were gone.

Yet somehow, his attempts to protect them had now become ammunition Malachi could use to tear apart everything Thalric had spent years building.

Malachi didn’t need to explain what Bailey had told him. His words alone revealed enough.

Whatever she had shared went far beyond what Thalric expected her to tell someone who had done nothing to earn her trust. Malachi knew Thalric had deliberately kept things from the Church, which meant Bailey hadn’t stopped at telling him about Noah.

She had told him what Thalric had learned from Paul and the others, and, more importantly, what he had chosen not to reveal afterward.

Thalric’s eyes settled on Bailey again.

For the first time since noticing her among the expedition, there was no concern behind his stare.

He wanted to cut her down where she stood.

The thought came with enough force that Thalric had to remind himself of where he was and who surrounded him. He despised men like Malachi, but he expected nothing less from them.

Their sense of righteousness had become so warped that they could justify almost anything as long as they believed it served a greater purpose. But for all the things Thalric hated about men like him, there was one accusation he couldn’t make.

They didn’t betray their own.

Bailey was someone Thalric had gone out of his way to protect.

He knew people had every reason to question his decision to keep what he learned from Paul and the others to himself. If Noah truly was a danger to Ashenveil, then the people living there had a right to know. Thalric had chosen to withhold much of what he learned anyway because he also knew what revealing everything would mean for Bailey and the others.

Now Bailey had willingly given those same secrets to the very people Thalric had been trying to protect them from.

What Thalric hated even more than men like Malachi was someone willing to betray their own. What made Bailey’s betrayal worse was that she didn’t even seem to realize she had done it.

She had walked into the Church’s hands believing she was protecting one of her friends, told Malachi things that had never belonged to her alone, and given him exactly what he needed to turn Thalric’s efforts to protect them against him.

Judging by the uncertainty still written across Bailey’s face, she still didn’t understand what she had done.

As Malachi began explaining what Bailey had told him, Thalric quickly noticed something strange.

There was no mention of Paul or the others.

Thalric had expected their names to come up almost immediately, especially after Malachi made it clear that he knew Thalric had been withholding information. Yet the man said nothing about where Bailey and the others came from, their relationship with Noah, or any of the other secrets Thalric expected Bailey to reveal along with everything else.

Had she actually kept those things from him?

Or was Malachi keeping them to himself?

Thalric couldn’t tell, and given the way the man operated, he wasn’t willing to assume either possibility.

What Malachi revealed next, however, pushed that concern aside.

According to Bailey, killing one of the creatures connected to Noah would severely weaken him.

Thalric’s gaze immediately snapped toward her.

That was something none of them had told him when he questioned them about Noah.

Why?

If the information was true, it could change how they approached the entire battle. They didn’t necessarily have to defeat Noah while he was at his strongest. If his creatures could be separated from him and killed first, then every death could potentially make the real target easier to deal with.

Even Varkesh found himself unsettled by the revelation, although his concern quickly turned elsewhere.

Varkesh didn’t understand the connection between Noah and his creatures well enough to know where it began or ended. What he did know was that Pandora shared some kind of connection with the demon, and Gwen was connected to Pandora in turn.

Did that make Gwen part of it as well?

Looking around at the people gathered here, he doubted any of them would care enough to figure out the distinction before acting on the information they had just received. If killing those connected to Noah could weaken him, then anyone suspected of sharing that connection could become a target.

He needed to warn them, but the thought had barely formed before Varkesh remembered who surrounded him.

All of the S-rankers were here, along with enough powerful members that trying to leave now would immediately draw attention.

There was no chance they would allow him to wander into the forest on his own, especially the church, which still judged him to be colluding with the demon despite lacking proof.

Unfortunately, Malachi finally chose that moment to explain why Varkesh had been brought into the discussion in the first place.

“We already have Bailey’s descriptions of several creatures connected to the demon.” Malachi turned toward Varkesh. “What we need from you is confirmation.”

Malachi’s smile remained as he continued.

“You’ve seen some of these creatures yourself. What we want to know is which ones were with the demon, and for you to describe them to us so Bailey can verify if they are the ones that need to be targeted.

Only then did Varkesh understand what they were actually trying to accomplish.

He gulped; his throat was extremely parched from anxiety. If it was like before, he could tell the exact same story he had told many times, perhaps even vaguely describing the monsters as though he barely remembered.

But… His gaze peeked over. Bailey was there when he discussed things with them that he had told the church or the guild. What if she calls him out?

His hesitation was too obvious. And for some ominous reason, he saw Malachi’s smile widening.

In that moment, Varkesh decided to give them the information they wanted. He just hoped that the demon didn’t blame him.