Simon let out a contented sigh as he leaned back in his leather chair, his feet kicked up and crossed on his desk, book in hand. He truly appreciated the benefits of his position in this small time town, practically a village if there were a hundred or so less people. When the higher ups first appointed him to the town of Tirac, Simon rebelled against the idea of being in charge of such a pitiful amount of people. Surely this was no place to begin his rise through the ranks. Someone of his drive and ambition deserved larger projects to handle!

The journey to Tirac slowly dimmed his anger, however, as he realized that he had the opportunity to use this “humble beginning” to elevate himself into a position of higher power. After all, few people in the upper echelons of the Adventurer’s Guild didn’t like a “rise to prominence” story. And so, he set his ambition and determination on a new track, planning to turn this backwater town into his base of operations.

Unfortunately...time grinded his passion into dust. That, and the absolutely horrendous quality of the people and resources he had to work with. While Tirac was initially a popular hub of activity due to it being built on top of four diverse and easy dungeons, the appeal of it had eroded away long before Simon made his debut there. The dungeons never grew strong enough to keep higher quality adventurers returning. Their resources, while useful on a basic scale, could not supply more than what the town needed, so there was limited opportunity for any export of goods. Eventually, the hype surrounding this once promising town faded away, along with the better merchants and entrepreneurs. All that remained were people who could not afford to leave and those who were fine with the meager existence that the town provided.

This left Simon as the Guild Manager for what he considered the lowest quality guild branch ever. The only adventurers that still worked in Tirac were basically trash in his eyes. That opinion was not far from the truth. By the time he realized the situation the Guild had put him in, Simon had already unconsciously settled into a life of lazy pleasure, spending most of his time reading in his office and indulging in other leisure activity.

It’s not like there was much work to do otherwise. And what little was there, he learned to lazily delegate.

At this time, Simon was reading about the history of the word “klek”, one of much contention and debate. Personally, it was his favorite profane word. Actually, it was the only profane word in the whole universal lexicon.

While the System provided a single, universal language for ease of communication, it had not bothered to translate the profanity of any native tongues. Scholars debated about the reason of this until their faces turned blue, but no one had an answer for why it is so. And no matter how people tried to circumvent this, or tried to forcefully curse in Universal, the System blocked it with ease. So, it became a very strange twist indeed that one word escaped the “Great Filter”, as some called it. That word is “klek”.

Simon turned the pages of his book, a book that would get him attacked by any Systemic that caught him reading it. Of course, they would be attacked in turn as self defense, then summarily arrested and tried for offenses against the Guild Manager, but that would do nothing to stop them. Honestly, Simon didn’t blame them. He understood their position...but he could not care less. “Klek” is his only outlet, and he will say it as much as he kleking pleased.

A smile crept onto his slightly better than average face as he considered the folklore origin of the word. See, the story goes that long, long ago, when the world was still new and the system still young, there were...discrepancies. Errors. Glitches, if one really wanted to be mobbed to death by Systemics. And those who were fortunate, or unfortunate, to witness those...discrepancies, spoke of the sound that the System made while trying to correct itself. Klek...klek...klek.

Now, considering that the System essentially made up the fabric of the world and reality itself, one might be led to believe that it was mildly concerning to hear it trying to fix itself. You know, since errors could lead to the collapse of all life on Novec. Yeah.

Of course, there are no official reports of this phenomenon, despite people searching for generations, in almost every corner of the world. At least, every corner that one could safely travel. Never knew when a kleking dungeon would open up and spit out some monsters to snack on you. And so, the lack of authentic witness reports and evidence pushed the word into the realm of folklore, the common folk began to use it as a universal curse, and the fanatics that worshipped the System took it as a personal offense that there could ever be anything wrong with its operation. Naturally, all of this was settled well before Simon’s time, but to this day, people with no confidence in their strength would hesitate to utter it to Systemic faces.

Simon used it for fun, to watch the reactions of those he said it to.

Simon’s happy musings were interrupted as the door to his office opened, and the Guild Clerk entered unannounced. “Ugh,” he moaned, “Will you ever knock on the kleking door? Klek, it’s like I get no respect around here!”

The clerk, Nash, answered with a straight face, “With the way you curse, it’s hard to see how you get any respect at all.” Simon made a face at him, which Nash promptly ignored. He was too used to the Guild Manager’s behavior, having worked with him for years now. “Anyways, there’s a problem.”

Simon sighed, taking his feet off of the desk and giving Nash more of his attention. Of course there was a problem. Why else would he barge in like that. Simon blinked. Actually, he does that any time. Huh. “Alright, what is it?”

“Team Boar is wiped out.” Nash spoke with the same emotionless voice.

“Huh...well, I knew they were kleking garbage, but they’ve been farming the kleking easiest dungeon here. Probably the easiest on the kleking continent,” Simon responded. “How was the situation with their Life Tokens?”

Nash glanced at the document in his hand, though Simon knew it was more for accuracy than for any real need. The man had the mind of a steel trap. It made him an excellent choice for his position, for his class, really. Simon could never tell how much of his capability came from his class skills and how much from his inherent talent. “According to the report, all of their Life Tokens broke within a minute or two of each other. So it does not seem to be an act of betrayal on any team member’s part. The only other explanations would be if they stumbled into some sort of new dungeon trap or if a new monster appeared, one powerful enough to kill them all directly.”

Simon thought about it for a moment. Before he could speak out, Nash continued. “There is another matter that may or may not be related. This one...more concerning.” Then why didn’t you mention it first, you kleking idiot, Simon thought to himself. “The mana signature for the slime dungeon...vanished.”

That made Simon sit up straight and give Nash a serious look. “When did this happen? Why was it not reported sooner?”

Nash gave Simon a withering look of his own. “I did not learn of this until the Token Keeper informed me about Team Boar and I lightly investigated the dungeon signatures for anomalies. You know that no one wastes the resources to constantly monitor F-Ranked dungeons. There’s no benefit in it It’s much more cost effective to let the adventuring teams report any changes they see in the field.”

Simon deflated slightly, knowing his clerk to speak the truth. He rubbed his temples in frustration. “Fine, kleking fine, I get it. Conduct a deeper investigation and see what you can dig up, on my authority. Contact Team Viper and tell them to get their eyes on the boar dungeon, I want to know if anything changed in there. Team Boar might have decided to switch things up a bit and entered the slime dungeon, or maybe they were messing around with it on the side already. I want full reports as soon as possible. I’ll stay here and prepare to mobilize if necessary.”

Nash, nodding at each of Simon’s instructions, halted at the last sentence. He glanced at the book on Simon’s desk, noting the title, then looked back at his Guild Manager with a blank expression. “Sure you will,” he said, before walking out the door to complete his tasks.

Cheeky klekker, Simon thought. Then, laziness taking over once more, he went back to his book.